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Daylight Moon through Tree

Robert Watcher

Well-known member
Driving the country roads this evening my wife and I noticed the huge moon to the east, while the sun was getting lower in the sky directly across to the west. I started to head home to get a camera and go back - when i remembered that I had my Olympus E-510 and 70-300 lens in the back seat from the weekend.

I found this baren tree that lined up perfectly with the moon - - - took some shots with it to the side and these ones with the moon tangled in the branches. Handholding, I grabbed two shots - - - one with the tree in focus and moon obviously out of focus - and the other with the moon in focus and tree blurred.

My intent was to combine the two images in Photoshop so that both moon and tree branches would be in focus. When I had made the overaly and added a Multiply Blend Mode to the top (smaller, angled) layer, there was a really cool effect of a darker overlay on top of light. I accentuated that effect by cutting out some sections - and then ran it through an Old Paper Filter where I played with the brown color intensity. This is my result, which I quite like:

13437855926867_moontrees.jpg

Daylight Moon Through Branches
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Robert,

This is an exciting turn for you, almost as if you had spent a weekend with Charlotte Thompson and her overlays. but your work is all from pictures you have taken and of the same subject. I use the multiply feature in layers but also all the others but most especially overlay, penlight and subtract. Again, I resort to carving my layers if I don't get exactly what I'm hoping for with just the blend.

This works well. You can also try blending this result back with your originals. In any case, I'd love to see more, since you have a limitless series in the making. Some may ask, "Is this is photography or is that identity lost?" My answer would be a guarded, "Yes! At least to this point.", as all you are doing is altering the presentation of differences in light reflection from the tree and the moon.

Ashher
 

Robert Watcher

Well-known member
Thanks for your comments and concepts.

Actually Asher, this is a look that I used to get in my wet darkroom by laying cut up pieces of card flat on the photo paper - holding back light from some areas or burning in some areas so that the shapes showed in the print. But I do believe that this may be the first time that I have blended 2 images of the same content where I have acheived focus on 2 different areas of the scene.

I too use Blend modes extensively. While I rely heavily on overlay, soft light, multiply, lighter, and darker modes as well as a few others - - - there are acouple of Blend modes that I regularly use that aren't so common to many photographers.

The first is "Difference" mode. This is for me, absolutely the best way to line up layers precisely. When 2 layers are perfectly aligned, the image is totally black. I do a lot of compositing and head and feature replacement in my portraits. I used to use a lowered opacity on the top layer, but that is way more difficult than useing Difference on the top layer.

The second is "Luminous" mode - a recent find that comes in very handy being that I have recently become a fanatic in using endless numbers of adjustment layers on a given image. What quite often happens when making say a Curves adjustment layer - is that the tonality and color of the underlying image becomes more intensified. My changing the Blend mode of the adjustment layer to Luminous, the tonality and color stays true.
 

Charlotte Thompson

Well-known member
Robert

Interesting overlay- I don't think I have ever seen one made like this- First thing I thought of was "cut outs" pasted together combined with photos- Nice work- Interesting. Almost has an abstract feel to it-
I do a lot of work in blending overlay backgrounds with photos- many of which I purchase- some of which I photo myself- It's a creative way of all sorts for me- So much one can do with this art!
I too would like to see more of your overlay work

Charlotte-
 
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